After the disavowal of Marxian socialism, the major obstacle to historical studies in the West increasingly appears to be the U.S.A.'s intellectual exceptionalism. That nation's unprecedentedly powerful and self-referential historical profession is largely committed to echo this exceptionalism by its engagement with the demands of the U.S.A.'s ‘civil religion’. For U.S. historiography, the main index of self-absorption or international engagement is nevertheless still its relationship to British historiography. This article argues that the alleged death of British history in the U.S.A. is not a consequence of any loss of intellectual vitality in the subject; it is, rather, a result partly of growing intellectual introversion in the host culture, partly of the inadequate versions of British history often exported to the American market.